Fireside Chat: Keri Putnam and Barbara Twist

In this Fireside Chat, Keri Putnam (former CEO of the Sundance Institute and Walter Shorenstein Fellow) and Barbara Twist (ED of Film Festival Alliance) discuss their preliminary results from the first-ever large-scale survey of the scale, demographics, and interests of the U.S. audience of independent scripted and documentary film. The decline in mainstream distribution opportunities for independent documentaries has sparked efforts to reimagine audience engagement and distribution strategies. Platforms cite shifting audience behaviors—favoring streaming over communal gathering experiences—as justification for reduced investment in independent films. However, the economic and cultural value of audience engagement remains widely underexplored due to a lack of publicly available data. In this Fireside Chat, Keri Putnam and Barbara Twist discuss their collaboration on the first-ever large-scale survey of U.S. audiences for independent scripted and documentary films.